Athletic support



April 7, 1970 H. G. NELKIN ATHLETIC SUPPORT Filed March 6, 1968 INVENTOR. HENRY G. NELKIN WaZ EF A T TORNEY United States Patent 3,504,671 ATHLETIC SUPPORT Henry G. Nelkin, Kansas City, Mo., assignor to H. G. Enterprises, a co-partnership Filed Mar. 6, 1968, Ser. No. 711,087 Int. Cl. A61f /40; A41b 9/02; A41d 5/00 US. Cl. 128-158 8 Claims ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE An athletic support having a belt made of a wide band of longitudinally elastic fabric, a pouch of longitudinally and transversely extensible fabric, and a pair of longitudinally elastic fabric bands of substantially the same width as the belt, secured to the belt in spaced relation and extending downwardly to the pouch at an oblique angle to converge at the upper edge of the pouch, and eg straps extending from the lower end of the pouch to points on the belt spaced longitudinally of the belt from each other and from the obliquely extending bands. The obliquely extending bands are secured to the top edge of the pouch and bottom edge of the belt by elastic tape. The pouch has its top edge close to the bottom edge of the belt so that the distance between the pouch and the belt is less than the width of the tape from which the belt and converging bands are formed.

My invention comprises a belt made of a wide longitudinally extensible fabric band, a pouch of longitudinally and transversely extensible fabric and a pair of fabric bands secured at their upper ends of the belt in spaced relation and extending obliquely downwardly to the pouch in converging relation, with the lower ends thereof secured to the top edge of the pouch, the proximate edges of these bands being closely adjacent each other so that the belt and the obliquely extending bands form a triangular fabric structure having the legs thereof longitudinally extensible.

Athletic supporters prior to the applicants invention have been provided with a belt portion that is mounted above the hips and which has relatively long widely spaced supporting straps which do not remain in close contact with the body of the wearer when going through bending movements, and thus do not accomplish the desired supporting function at all times. I have provided an athletic supporter that has wide elastic bands for supporting the pouch that have their proximate edges meeting where the same are secured to the top edge portion of the pouch. These bands are substantially the same width as the elastic band that is provided for forming the belt portion of the apparatus and thus provides a protective and supporting means not only for the external male genital organs, but also for the abdomen. Instead of providing a belt that extends above the hips of the wearer my belt is in position over the hip bones when the support is in use. This makes it have a position such that it will be located on the under side of the abdominal bulge of the wearer and will, together with the short lengths of the converging supporting bands, act as an abdominal support, as well as providing the desired uplift of the pouch without irritating tightness.

By providing a pair of converging bands that are longitudinally extensible and transversely inextensible for securing said bands to the bottom edge of the belt and to the top edge of the pouch by means of longitudinally extensible tape, the converging supporting bands for the pouch will exert a gentle even pull upwardly on the pouch along the upper edge thereof and will be capable of moving away from each other, where secured to the belt, as the belt is stretched lengthwise of itself around the body of the wearer, but the transverse inextensibility of the pouch R 3,504,671 Patented Apr. 7, 1970 ice supporting bands will limit the extensibility of the belt at its lower edge where said obliquely extending pouch supporting bands are secured thereto, as well as where the supporting bands are secured to the pouch. Thus only the longitudinal extensibility of the obliquely extending bands will permit stretching of the pouch at the upper edge thereof, as well as stretching of the belt along its bottom edge, where said converging bands are secured thereto.

Other objects and advantages of my invention will appear as the description of the drawings proceed. However, I do not intend to limit myself to the particular details shown or described except as defined in the claims.

In the drawings:

FIG. 1 is a front elevational view, partially in perspective, showing my improved athletic support in the position it would have when in use.

FIG. 2 is a fragmentary detail sectional view on an enlarged scale taken on the line 22 in FIG. 1, and

FIG. 3 is a perspective view showing a portion of the wearers body in dotted lines and the athletic support n its position on the body.

Referring in detail to the drawings, my improved athletic support comprises a belt 5 made of a wide band of elastic fabric which is extensible lengthwise, but not crosswise, the ends thereof being secured together premanently by suitable tape 6 secured to the meeting ends of the elastic fabric band by means of stitching 7. Upon referring to FIG. 3 it will be seen that when in use the belt 5 is positioned over the hip bones of the wearer. Secured to the extensible elastic fabric band forming the belt 5, along the bottom edge of the forward portion thereof, is a pair of obliquely extending longitudinally extensible elastic bands 8 which are inextensible transversely of their length. Said bands are secured to the top edge portion 10 of the pouch 9, which is made of longitudinally and transversely extensible elastic fabric of a rather open mesh, as is customary. The top edge portion 10 of the pouch is straight and extends substantially parallel to the straight bottom edge portion 11 of the belt 5.

The bands 8 extend in downwardly converging relation to each other and are secured at the upper end edges thereof to the bottom edge of the belt 5 by means of a piece of elastic tape 12 extending lengthwise of the bottom edge of the belt 5 and secured to the belt 5 by rows of stitching 13, the top edge portions of the bands 8 slightly overlapping the bottom edge portion 11 of the belt. The bottom edges of the converging bands 8 are secured to the pouch 9 adjacent to top edge 10 thereof by means of a similar piece of longitudinally extensible tape 14 and rows of stitching 15, the bottom edge of each band 8 overlapping the top edge of the pouch 10, as well be obvious from FIG. 2.

The remote edges 16 of the band 8 coincide substantially with the side edges of the pouch 9 at the bottom ends thereof, while the proximate edges 17 of said bands lie closely adjacent each other at the top edge 10 of the pouch preferably meeting, as shown in FIG. 1, so that the entire top edge portion 10 of the pouch is secured to the downwardly converging supporting bands 8. The proximate edges 17 of the bands 8 intersect the belt 5 in spaced relation to each other to thus provide a belt portion that lies between the two converging bands 8, said belt portion and said bands thus forming a triangular structure each of the legs of which are extensible. Substantially the entire body area above the top edge of the pouch is covered by the bands 8 and the belt, except for a small triangular opening 18 existing between the bands 8 and the belt 5.

Extending from the opposite end of the pouch 9, from said top edge portion 10, are the leg bands 19 of longitudinally extensible material which are secured at their top ends to the rear portion of the belt 5 in widely spaced relation, so that the leg straps will be not only spaced widely from each other, but will also be spaced lengthwise of belt 5 from the portions of said belt that have bands 8 secured thereto, and from the middle of the back engaging portion of the belt 5.

The belt 5 and the bands 8 will thus exert not only an upward yielding pulling action on the top edge of the pouch, but will also exert an upward and inward pressure on the abdominal wall, thus acting not only as an uplifting support for the entire external male genital organs, but also as protection therefor, and to provide a support for the abdominal wall over the forward lower portion thereof.

What I claim is:

1. An althletic support comprising a wide longitudinaly extensible fabric band having its ends secured together to form a belt, a pouch of longitudinally and transversely extensible fabric having a transversely extending top edge portion, a pair of longitudinally extensible fabric bands secured at the upper ends thereof to said belt at locations spaced longitudinally of said belt, to provide a portion of said belt extending between said pair of bands, said pair of bands extending obliquely downwardly from said belt to said pouch in converging relation and being secured at the lower ends thereof to the top edge portion of said pouch, the proximate edges of said obliquely extending bands being closely adjacent at the lower ends thereof, said obliquely extending bands and the portion of said belt extending between said bands forming a triangular extensible fabric structure having longitudinally extensible legs, and leg straps extending from the lower end of said pouch to points on said belt spaced longitudinally of said belt from each other and from said obliquely extending bands.

2. The athletic support claimed in claim 1 in which said obliquely extending bands said first mentioned band are of approximately the same width.

3. The athletic support claimed in claim 1 in which said bands are inextensible transversely of the length thereof.

4. The athletic support claimed in claim 1 in which longitudinally extensible tape is secured to said pouch and said obliquely extending bands and extends lengthwise of said top edge of said pouch.

5. The athletic support claimed in claim 1 in which longitudinally extensible tape is secured to the bottom edge of said belt and said obliquely extending bands and extends lengthwise of said bottom edge of said belt.

6. The athletic support claimed in claim 1 in which the proximate edges of said obliquely extending bands at the ends thereof attached to said belt are spaced apart a lesser distance than the width of said obliquely extending bands.

7. The athletic support claimed in claim 1 in which the top edge of said pouch is closer to the bottom edge of said belt than the width of said first mentioned band.

8. The athletic support claimed in claim 1 in which the top edge of said pouch is straight and extends in parallelism to the bottom edge of said belt.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 1,638,525 8/1927 Chisholm 128-l58 1,672,296 6/1928 Benisch 12Sl58 2,427,428 9/1949 Vitale l28l58 ADELE M. EAGER, Primary Examiner US. Cl. X.R. 2-224, 67 

